Re: Architectural and application setup Advice

assuming you are using the current version of dotnet (2.1.300), then I'd just use the react template

mkdir myapp
cd myapp
dotnet new react
code .

this will give you a solution with clientapp folder, that uses the react scripts to compile and a webapi project. also a SPA middleware is supplied, that serves the react public static files from the clientapp public folder. the SPA middleware will also
start web pack express server for hot module support in dev mode.

the ClientApp folder is the same structure as if you used the create-react-app cli. just cd to this folder and type

nom start

and the react site will run. of course the asp.net core will not be running, so ajax calls fail. stop the site and run the dotnet app